• Published 9th Sep 2018
  • 1,660 Views, 131 Comments

Divergence - RQK



The many facets which once checked a now-dead ancient evil are now gone, and a shred of that evil has returned. And now its former prison threatens to steal all magic from everywhere. The complications grow from there.

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8 - Links II

Stygian stood up straight and lit his horn, his magic a moderate azure. A portal appeared in the middle of the Canterlot Castle throne room, revealing a dusty and forever browned throne room on the other side. Stygian looked back at his companions. Starswirl the Bearded nodded sagely and too looked back. Mistmane, Mage Meadowbrook, Rockhoof, Flash Magnus, and Somnambula also nodded in return, and then they turned toward their guest.

Stygian knew of a Chancellor Neighsay. In this timeline, Chancellor Neighsay was the head of the Equestria Education Association, and had given Princess Twilight trouble. The pony standing with them was not a chancellor; rather, he had been a tactician in a war against King Sombra, but this stallion resembled Chancellor Neighsay in every other way, down to the goatee and the slicked-back mane.

Stygian stepped through as the others motioned for Neighsay to follow. One by one, the eight of them stepped through the opening and emerged into the ruined throne room surrounded by the wasteland.

Six of the seven tables had bodies at them. The Celestias and Lunas paid them no mind as they continued their own conversation.

“Yes,” Luna D said. “The Dragon Lands have gone dark in our timeline. We’re trying to gather some information, but right now, we fear the worst.”

“There are a couple of places south of Equestria that we haven’t heard back from,” Celestia S replied. “We don’t know if they have necessarily gone dark yet, but the possibility is there.”

The Celestias and Lunas nodded solemnly.

Stygian cleared his throat and approached the one empty table that had a letter R on it. “Excuse me, Your Highnesses.”

Several heads turned. Their expressions hardened as they spotted Stygian first and hardened again when they saw the rest of the Pillars and Neighsay. Luna I said it first, “Excuse me? Can we help you?”

Starswirl also approached the table and nodded. “Yes, Your Highnesses. As a matter of fact, it sounds like we came at the perfect time. We have news on this front.”

They all shot to attention and now turned to face them in full.

Luna I nodded. “Then pray tell us your report?”

Starswirl nodded. “May I introduce Mister Neighsay of Equestria S,” he said as he stepped aside.

Neighsay straightened up and approached the table. His eyes fell on table S where he locked eyes with his Princess Celestia.

Celestia S straightened up. “Mister Neighsay. A pleasure to see you again.”

“Likewise, Your Highness,” Neighsay replied. He turned toward the rest of the congregation. “I’ve just come from the town of Somnambula on the southern border of Equestria S. I am afraid that I must confirm your worst fears.”

Somnambula straightened up but her expression didn’t change.

“We were indeed attacked,” Neighsay said simply.

The gasps around the room were silent and subdued as the Celestias and Lunas exchanged sharp glances.

Luna N straightened up. “So, it’s true, then.”

Celestia I looked back at Neighsay now. “Mister Neighsay, can you describe the attack for us?”

Neighsay nodded. “Yes. It was very sudden. I was in town just yesterday, you see. And we heard these roars in the sky as we saw a large airship armada appear out of portals in the air. They all bore Storm King flags and they dropped Storm King soldiers on us. I have to imagine there were at least ten airships.”

Celestia S frowned. “That is quite a lot for a town in the desert.”

Stygian nodded. “I believe ten airships or so was how many they took Canterlot with in our timeline, Your Highness.”

“I concur," Starswirl said."

“I was able to get out because I’m an authorized portal spell caster,” Neighsay explained. “Plus I’ve developed my own long distance travel portals. Anyway, during the attack, I was able to determine which timeline they were making the portals from, and I made my own portal into the wasteland to see. I want to imagine that’s this timeline, isn’t it?”

Luna N nodded. “It is.”

“And while I was there, I saw they had about a hundred more airships all waiting. And that was just in that area alone. They could have more.”

The Celestias and Lunas sat there in reflective silence. A few even leaned against and steadied themselves on the tables in front of them. The Pillars, meanwhile, exchanged worried glances.

“That… is… horrible,” Luna T said at length as she pinched the bridge of her muzzle.

Celestia S shuddered. “Y-yes. It is. We cannot…”

Several sets of eyes looked up.

Celestia S’s muzzle scrunched up as she trembled in her seat. “We cannot do another war. I cannot do another war right now.”

“It would appear that the Storm Kings of the other timelines have united and begun campaigning,” Luna D said. “Is there anything we can do to combat this?”

Celestia N shook her head. “That is a very good question. But I don’t think we can honestly answer that how we would like to.”

“We could, in theory,” Celestia T said. “But, I think, in these circumstances…”

“We aren’t exactly unified right now,” Luna N sighed.

Neighsay’s eyes widened but he said nothing.

Stygian swallowed. “Maybe that’s why they’re moving now,” he suggested. As many heads turned to face him, he added, “Maybe they know that we’re not unified. Maybe they know that we aren’t at our strongest. We could even believe that Queen Chrysalis told them about us.”

Luna D frowned. “They… would know that we’ve burned our bridges.”

Neighsay looked around, examined their faces, and then cleared his throat. “Pardon the interjection,” he said, pausing again to let them face him, “but this is the first I have heard about this. I thought we Equestrias were allies?”

“We were,” Celestia C replied.

Neighsay tilted his head. “Were? Your Highnesses... did that change?”

Several of the Celestias and Lunas shifted uncomfortably and otherwise averted their gazes. For several long moments, none of them could even manage an answer.

* * *

Sunset looked at the piece of paper within her magic. She read over it in silence.

This is the W seal for the Nameless. I have committed sin and have done all I can to rectify the sin. The framework is in place, but I cannot finish it. I have made a mistake which will be the burden of the future. I have paid for my mistake with my existence and I will die knowing that is not enough. But all the worlds must come together. All that has diverged must reconnect. All the loose ends must be tied up. Only then, perhaps, will all the strife that I shall no doubt cause shall come to an end. Only then, perhaps, I may be truly forgiven. For the good of Consensus, you would do well to observe this, Sunset Shimmer.

Sunset frowned and read over it a couple more times. It read like a requiem of sorts.

But what does it mean? Sunset thought. There isn’t anyone else except for whoever created the seal that could have written this. That is obvious. But what sin are they talking about? Why is their mistake a burden on us?

Did their mistake cause the Nameless to exist?

She set the paper onto the table and stared at the ceiling. And why does it put so much emphasis on bringing the worlds together? Like… yeah, the Nameless was bad because it couldn’t associate with any one timeline, and it could spread that disassociation.

Sunset thought back to what she had seen in her dreams. Two of those dreams had stuck out to her.

The first had been of a strange, onyx-colored, silver mane and tailed alicorn stallion. He had done something with a crystal ball; perhaps he had energized it. And then there had been the monstrously large, chaotic blob of black slime with a red light in the middle of its mass. That was the Nameless; there was no doubt in Sunset’s mind.

The second had been with that same alicorn stallion. The other entity had been an ordered quadruped of black slime with a red light in the center. That entity, which had similar features to the Nameless yet contrasted it in some many ways, had activated some mechanisms. Those mechanisms had gone haywire and the entity had jumped into them in some vain attempt to contain them. And something had ripped.

Sunset frowned. These two entities I saw… are they related?

“Sunset?” a voice asked. “Are you alright?”

Sunset looked back down. Rarity, her friend from Canterlot High, was looking back at her. Here, in Equestria, she was the other Rarity; Sunset had to take a moment to remind herself of that. The rest of the Rainbooms sat at the table with her; they too watched her expectantly.

At other tables nearby, Princess Celestia, Princess Luna, and Tempest held a quiet conversation as they went over maps while discussing things apparently related to the Storm King. Spike and the rest of the Elements sat at another table, grading homework while occasionally tossing around theories related to Consensus.

Sunset chuckled nervously. “Oh, yeah. I’m okay. I’m just thinking. That’s all.”

The portal shimmered, and Principal Celestia and Vice Principal Luna stepped through. Unfortunately, both teetered and fell onto their faces, with the former spilling the bag she had been carrying in her forehooves, scattering papers across the floor.

Sunset shot to her hooves and trotted over to them. She picked up the papers with her magic while extending a hoof to Vice Principal Luna (as she was closest), helped her to her hooves, and then did the same for Principal Celestia. “Watch that step,” she said with a chuckle, “it’s a doozy.”

Principal Celestia frowned. “Yes. It is.”

At that, Vice Principal walked over to the table where the rest of the Rainbooms sat. “Alright, girls, we’ve brought your schoolwork for today.”

The other Twilight beamed as Sunset set the papers down. Sunset herself blinked and looked over at Vice Principal Luna with a raised eyebrow.

The other Rainbow Dash, however, threw her hooves into the air. “What!?”

Principal Celestia chuckled. “Rainbow Dash, we aren’t going to let you spend the day here for free. It’s still a school day.”

“Oh, come on!”

“Don’t worry, Rainbow Dash, I’ll help out!” the other Twilight cheerfully exclaimed.

“How the hay are we gunna even write with these?” the other Applejack asked as she held up her hooves.

Now Principal Celestia frowned. “O-oh. Well…”

Sunset snickered. “Just use your mouth. It’s not that hard.”

The other Rarity, along with the rest of the table, looked up at her and frowned. “Oh, Sunset, you did not just suggest that. Write with our mouths?” She snorted. “How uncouth.”

“I’m serious. That’s how many ponies in Equestria write.”

The table exchanged uncertain glances.

“Trust me,” Sunset said. “This is what it is like to be a pony. Remember, I grew up here.”

“Gosh, Sunset, you’re right. Now that I think about it, you must have spent so much time learning how to be a human like we are,” the other Fluttershy said. She briefly thought it over and then smiled. “You know… I think… if Sunset can learn how to be a human, we can learn how to be ponies.”

“Yeah!” the other Pinkie Pie exclaimed. “I’m with Fluttershy.”

The other Applejack chuckled. “Well, shoot. You ain’t wrong there.”

The other Rarity squirmed and eventually sighed. “Fine… I suppose.”

Sunset smiled. “I’ll leave you to it, then.”

As the eight of them continued their discussion on homework and writing techniques, Sunset trotted over to the table where Twilight, Starlight, and Adamantine worked, with the latter two sitting opposite.

Twilight looked up as Sunset approached. “Hey.”

“Hey. What’cha working on?”

“Oh, nothing too important. I’m just trying to double down on the time dilation stuff we’ve been seeing with the crystal ball.”

“Okay. Find anything so far?”

Twilight motioned to a spot next to her. “Kind of. Let me show you.”

As Sunset sat, Twilight levitated one of the papers on the table. “Fourth line in, it says, ‘All time manipulations from layers above this one shall add together to create the observed effect.’ Twilight looked up. “I think that means that it’s a sum.”

Sunset nodded. “I can see that.”

“So that means what we see is a sum of dilation effects that are either ours or above ours.”

Sunset looked at the transcription for a moment and then nodded. “Yeah. And we could probably guess that most layers are dilating.”

Twilight looked back down. “Each layer’s term shall be of a magnitude which is to the power of its distance away.”

“There’s a factor, right?”

“Yes,” Twilight replied. She looked down at the transcription again. “Inverse one point nine five five two six.”

“Okay, so every layer gives the same factor… to the power of the distance away from us it is. I guess it gets weaker the further out it is.”

Twilight nodded. “I would say so. Otherwise it would blow up.”

Sunset tilted her head. “Okay, but if we have that, what if we assumed that a bunch of layers above us weren’t dilating? There would be little to no time dilation in that case.”

After a moment’s pause, Twilight hummed. “Yes. If we idealized by saying there are no time dilation effects above us… I think we should get a one-to-one passage of time between us and the layer below us. We should run at the same speed in that case.”

“Like it did in the past,” Sunset pointed out.

“Mmhmm. So I guess we have to add one to whatever we have. So our passage of time between us and the layer below us will be one plus the time dilation effects from our layer and the layer above us.”

“Makes sense.” Sunset looked at the transcription again. “It says its an agreed on factor, so I guess while the layers can time dilate however they want, this is how the layers above us are going to dilate.” She paused. “It sounds to me like once we reach Consensus, every layer above us and also ours will be dilating using this factor.”

“I agree with that.”

Sunset put the quill on the paper and wrote 1+R0 onto it. “Since it sounds like an on/off situation here, I’ll start with this. Here’s our layer at power zero. And then I can say that the layer above us is time dilating and add that in.” She wrote some more. “And the layer above that…” She wrote some more.

Twilight gasped but said nothing. It was only then that Sunset herself stopped to see what she had written. It now read 1+R0+R1+R2.

“Oh, buck!” Sunset exclaimed. “It’s a geometric series!”

Several heads at the nearby table shot up and looked in their direction.

“An infinite geometric series!” Twilight shrieked. “Of course! That’s what it’s been trying to describe! Oh my gosh! We… we can solve that exactly.”

“It’s just one divided by one minus R, right?” Sunset said.

Twilight jabbed her hoof at Sunset. “That’s right. I think I can…” She grabbed a new sheet of paper and immediately put her quill to it. Mathematical equations ran off her quill but Twilight evidently did all of the number crunching in her head. She muttered herself through the steps all the while.

“Let’s see… three point oh four… two point oh four… one point five three…” Twilight’s eyes widened. “One point two seven! One point one four!”

Sunset blinked. “So I was right… we get back the ball speedup numbers we got back before.”

“That’s not all,” Twilight said. “Based on this, I’m also able to say that it’s us and the layer immediately above us that hasn’t time dilated yet. Everything above there has.” She looked up. “The next time the ball speeds up, it’ll run at two hundred and four percent speed.”

Sunset looked over at the numbers. “And it’s going to cap out at just over three hundred percent, huh?’

Twilight nodded. “Once we turn ours on, that is.”

Sunset held up the transcription. “It says it has to be applied and maintained during the last twenty hours. So I guess, twenty hours before Consensus, we’ll turn our part of the time dilation on.”

“And,” Adamantine chimed in from the other side of the table, “I suspect that the layer above us will also apply and maintain their time dilation terms in their last twenty hours.”

Twilight and Sunset nodded in response.

Starlight also glanced up. “You know, now that we have all the numbers, we could probably figure out exactly when Consensus is going to happen.”

Twilight perked up. “Yes! We could.”

The other Twilight stood up in a huff. “Oh! Let me take care of that! I’ll do those calculations!”

The others looked over and gave an assortment of chuckles and shrugs.

Twilight giggled. “Well, if there’s anypony I would trust with doing calculations like this, it would be myself!” She circled some numbers on the sheet of paper and then levitated it over to the Rainboom’s table. “Here you go. They aren’t to complete precision, so you can improve on that.”

The other Twilight nodded. “I’ll do that.”

“We all will,” the other Fluttershy cheerfully said.

Sunset smiled and then turned her attention to Adamantine and Starlight. “How are you doing over there?”

Adamantine exchanged glances with Starlight. “I believe we are making progress on these permissions. In fact, we may almost have it.”

“That’s good. How did you figure it out?”

“Hmmm. Mostly soul searching and remembering things I was not previously aware of. I am entirely convinced that the best course of action is to just ask me questions and see how I answer.”

Sunset leaned over the table to see their work. “Is it a magic spell?” she asked.

Adamantine nodded. “That it is.”

“Is it a hard one?” she asked.

Starlight giggled. “Not really. It’s not even remotely demanding.”

“Huh, that’s cool. Will you need me for it?” Sunset asked.

At that, Adamantine blinked. She then looked at Starlight again. “Actually… no. Ah, we did not even talk about this. And yet… I know it to be true.”

Twilight looked up and even giggled. “Well, there you go.”

Sunset grinned and leaned forward. “What’s the secret to becoming an alicorn?” she asked.

Adamantine chuckled. “Oh, I definitely don’t know that one. I’m sorry.”

Sunset shrugged. “Well, it was worth a shot.”

Adamantine passed a paper over to Starlight who took it, carefully read it over, and eventually passed it back with a nod.

“Okay, Sunset,” Adamantine said as she stood up. “I am going to give it a try. Please tell me if you notice anything.”

Twilight put down her quill and looked up.

Sunset stood up as well and nodded in return. “Sure. Go ahead.”

Adamantine lit her horn. The magic washed over her body and then disappeared inside it.

And then Sunset found herself reaching out into places she couldn’t describe. Something was pulling her essence this way and that, stretching it out to places that didn’t exist. In a way, it felt like traveling through the mirror portal as her body twisted into new shapes. It was like growing fingers which were infinitely more complex and flexible than hooves were.

Sunset looked down at herself. Her physical body—it was a projection, she had to take a moment to remind herself of that—didn’t change at all, but she now felt like she could reach new places.

Some of those sensations were close. Many others were further away. But she could feel them all.

Starlight stood up. “Did it work?” she asked.

Sunset nodded. “Yeah. I think so.” She looked up. “I feel really connected to everything right now. It’s really… it’s… it’s something else?”

Adamantine nodded. “I would imagine that I’ve given you access to quite a bit.”

“Yeah.” Sunset scratched her head. “I can feel the seal. I can feel all the seals.” She looked around, trying to see stuff which she felt surrounded her on all sides, even in some directions that didn’t even exist. “I can feel it around me. What the hay.” She even batted the air.

Adamantine giggled. “Oh. That is precious.”

Sunset hummed as she mentally sorted through the sensations. Many similar ones were spread out across the world; one particularly dense sensation, however, took the shape of a pony—an alicorn at that. “I can sense the stones,” Sunset announced. She felt a smaller set of sensations; seven of them were clumped together while the eighth was distant. Unlike the stones, these sensations were firmer yet malleable. They seemed to reach into a new direction that, while the other directions didn’t exist, this new direction especially didn’t exist.

Sunset looked at the crystal ball sitting in the middle of the table. That crystal ball looked into another reality, much like theirs but not quite their own, in a direction that especially didn’t exist. Right now, the crystal ball showed Princess Celestia’s bedroom. The afternoon sun streamed through the windows at this moment.

Sunset leaned forward. And she, with her mind, touched that isolated sensation with her mind. And then she fed that sensation a thought: Forward.

Inside the crystal ball, the view crept forward. It ran into the wall, and all turned black, and then it showed the outside of the tower. The castle grounds, a myriad of sprawling greens and structures of bush, lay far below. The rest of the castle stretched up beyond that, with a certain tower visible on the other side of the grounds. Past the castle walls, the city of Canterlot stretched outward with its shining whites and bustily air.

Sunset sent another thought: Stop.

The view obeyed.

Twilight blinked. “Wait… Sunset! Y-you…”

“You can move the crystal ball with your mind!?” Starlight cried.

A table over, several heads shot up. Spike was the first to act as he hopped off the table and dashed over to them. The Elements also stood up and jogged over.

“Yeah. I got the ball too,” Sunset replied.

Applejack chuckled. “Well, ain’t that somethin’?”

“Adamantine got those permissions working,” Sunset explained. “So I’m connected to everything now.”

Rainbow Dash punched Sunset in her withers. “Awesome!”

“Actually… I wonder…” Sunset said as she turned her attention back to the ball. She stared at it for a few moments, thought about what she wanted, and then give it a thought; the thought, however, was a concept rather than a direction: Ponyville.

The view in the ball immediately changed to show a small town in the middle of the valley. Houses of simple, wooden materials dotted the earth. A large plaza in one corner of town hosted a red and yellow building that somewhat resembled a carousel. A large, crystalline, tree-shaped castle towered over the town and a rather large school stood attached to the hill right beside it.

Fluttershy, along with the others, gasped. “Oh, wow!”

“Good heavens!” Rarity exclaimed. “I’ve never seen it do that before!”

Sunset tilted her head. Canterlot tower.

The view changed again into a large room. Towering bookshelves ringed around the room, rusted machines lay in the outlying spaces, and a sprawling window that took up an entire side let all the sunlight in. The window frame looked new—it had likely been replaced, after all. The space where a large hourglass had once stood was still vacant.

Twilight nodded with approval. “That’s impressive! I didn’t know that degree of control was even possible!”

Sunset nodded and looked up. “I don’t think that’s all I can do with it. But yeah, this is pretty cool.”

Spike climbed onto the table. “Hey, what about getting it to look at other layers?”

Fluttershy gasped. “Oh, that’s right! It did mention something about that.”

Sunset ran a hoof through her mane. “Yeah… Uh, I hadn’t thought too much about that. I could probably do that… if I knew how.”

“There has to be a command for it somewhere,” Twilight suggested. “Command words, maybe… but I don’t know them.”

“I believe the words you are looking for are anaward and kataward,” Adamantine replied with a smile. She then blinked in astonishment and shook her head. “Ah, how did I know that?”

“What?” Rainbow Dash asked.

Twilight giggled. “Oh, yes. Those are the words we’d use if there were four spacial dimensions instead of three.” She turned. “Sunset, I think those might be it.”

“I’ll try that,” Sunset said. She looked back at the crystal ball. It’s looking at the layer below us right now. One layer up from that would be our layer, she thought. She reached out and mentally touched the crystal ball again. Anaward.

Everyone leaned across the table. The ball’s view changed again, but while it still showed the tower, relatively unchanged, the sky outside reflected a morning time.

Ping!

Sunset blinked. The sound had been so quick and so sudden and, strangely, had been entirely inside her head. Across the way, Adamantine also blinked.

“Good job, Sunset!” Twilight exclaimed. “You did it! At least, I assume you did it.”

Sunset’s frown deepened. “Thanks. Uh, did anyone else hear anything just now?”

While everyone else exchanged glances, Adamantine nodded. “I did. I heard a ping.”

“Ah… Ah didn’t hear nothin’,” Applejack countered.

“It was inside my head,” Sunset said.

“Same with mine,” Adamantine said. “I have heard it before. Every nine days, on the dot, since I was born.”

Sunset leaned forward. “What does it mean?” she asked. “Does that pinging mean anything?”

After a few thoughtful moments, Adamantine nodded sagely. “Yes. I… I think it means that our layer is being watched.”

The others gasped.

Sunset nodded. “Well, I just moved this ball into looking at our layer.”

“Evidently, the seal—well, I—have a way of knowing when a crystal ball starts looking at our layer.” Adamantine scratched her head.

“Huh,” Starlight said. “That’s really interesting.”

But why do that? Sunset thought. What’s the reason behind this? When a few seconds of thought turned up nothing, she shook her head and pushed it out of her mind. She turned back toward the crystal ball. Anaward.

Inside the crystal ball, the view changed again; now the sun, based on the angle of light streaming into the room, was much higher. A few guards, visible on the grounds below, seemed to trot at a slower pace.

Sunset fed the ball the same command and continued to do so every time it changed. The view changed into an evening time, and then to nighttime, and then the very early morning. The next view was later in the morning.

Sunset paused. A couple of birds were flying by the room’s sprawling window. But they flew at a snail’s pace that shouldn’t have been possible and it seemed like their wings weren’t even moving. But they were, so impossibly slowly.

Several of the others cooed in response.

Spike even leaned forward and picked up the ball to better see into it. “Wow! They aren’t even moving!”

Twilight gasped and suddenly shot up. “Spike! Put it down!”

Spike blinked and looked over. And he gasped in return. “Sorry!” he said as he put it back on the table.

Sunset breathed a sigh of relief and then leaned forward. “But yeah. Look at those birds. We should be moving along much faster than their layer is. I would imagine higher layers are even slower than this for us.”

“Simply fascinating…” Adamantine cooed.

By this time, Princess Celestia, Princess Luna, and Tempest had walked over and were craning their necks to get a good look at the seemingly stationary birds outside the Canterlot tower window. In short order, the eight visitors from the human world came over as well. Fluttershy flapped her wings and took to the air in order to make room, a move which Rainbow Dash shortly imitated.

“You could actually look into the future with this,” Twilight said.

Starlight nodded. “Yeah. That’s what it seems like. I mean,” she said as she glanced around at everyone, “that’s several layers up from us. But still!”

Sunset centered her thoughts on the crystal ball again and she fed it a new thought: Kataward.

Inside the crystal ball, the view changed back to earlier in the morning. It then changed into a night time and again into an evening time.

Principal Celestia, who watched the crystal ball intently, looked up. “It makes me wonder if it has ever been used for that exact purpose,” she said.

Sunset fed another kataward command to the ball and then heard a Ping! inside her head. She looked up and met Adamantine’s eyes; Adamantine stared back intently.

“That is a very good question,” Princess Celestia replied, shooting her double a smile. “If whoever made these things went through the trouble of adding that functionality, I don’t see why they wouldn’t use it.”

Principal Celestia frowned. “Well, they went through the trouble of adding a lot of things that hardly have anything to do with sealing away a monster.” She glanced around the table. “Just from what I’ve heard from all of you, we still don’t understand what many of these things were for.”

As Sunset continued mentally feeding the ball commands, during which the view kept changing by slight amounts, she physically turned to look at them. “Yeah… why would they bother messing with other timelines in that case? Why would they bother working with infinitely many layers in that case? How did they even figure out they even existed?” She paused. She then made a motion with her forehooves like she was shaking some invisible object. “Why do they care so much about the existence of these other worlds, anyway?”

Twilight leaned forward. “Why go through all the trouble of keeping them on track? Why make such a big deal about weights and averages, whatever that is for?”

Princess Celestia nodded solemnly. “That bothers me as well. What is Consensus, and why is it so important? What is it to us?”

“Yes... there’re so many questions… many of which I’m sure only those behind the seal could have answered.”

Adamantine hummed. “Well… perhaps it is possible that these things have been put in place because they knew that we would need it,” she offered.

Princess Luna ruffled her wings as she looked up. “Adamantine… you suggest that they have indeed looked into the future?”

“At the very least,” Adamantine replied with a tentative nod, “it would motivate what we’ve observed.”

Princess Luna stared for a second. “Yes… It would explain why the seal knows about the modern-day name for the Nameless.”

The other Rainbow Dash stood up in a huff and leaned across the table. “Yeah. I’d like to know if that’s why it knows about Sunset!”

Twilight opened her mouth to speak, closed it again, and then tremulously said, “I-it could be. But…”

“For that to be true,” Tempest said, “it would have to have a way to find us.”

Princess Luna furrowed her brow. “Given the complexity of everything that we’ve seen… even for how statistically unlikely that is… I would not be surprised if they managed to do just that.”

Before anyone else could speak, as the view in the ball switched again, they all heard new sounds which seemed to be coming from the ball. It sounded like speech, even. A few ponies stood in the middle of the tower; Starlight, Adamantine, and Sunset. Strangely enough, a few more Sunset Shimmers stood off to the side.

Sunset, the one standing with Adamantine and Starlight, glanced toward the ceiling. “Do you know where it leads?” After a moment’s pause, she said, “Right.” She then nodded and motioned toward a set of orange spheres. “Yeah, I think I have something that you might not have seen before either. Look at these.” And then, a moment later, she said as she looked over them, “I don’t know.”

Twilight (along with a few others) gasped. “Oh, wow! I don’t believe it!”

“Oh my,” Adamantine said, holding a hoof against her chest as all breath left her. “I remember this.”

Starlight gasped and then leaned across the table so she could be as close to the crystal ball as possible. “Oh gosh, me too. This was right before it all went wrong.”

Sunset looked up. “Y… yeah…”

Adamantine approached the set and picked one up with her magic, eyeing it closely, pausing to take another sip of her coffee. “So these are the items that supplemented the seal. I never thought I would actually see one of these up close…” After a moment’s pause, she continued, “Which would be ten days ago for you, Twilight.” She picked up another stone, this one white. She held it up. “This one is missing the energy in its outer layer.”

“We should… we should warn them!” Starlight exclaimed.

“What exactly does that mean?” Starlight asked.

Adamantine frowned. “It’s a dead stone.”

“It doesn’t work that way,” Sunset replied. “I think we can only talk to the layer right below us. Every other layer is out of luck.”

Sunset fed the crystal ball another kataward command, and the view changed again to show an empty tower once more. She continued feeding more commands, idly wondering if she would find herself again if she went down far enough.

The other Twilight chuckled. “Still, I can’t believe you just found yourselves. That’s so fascinating.”

Sunset giggled and looked up. “Well… I mean… we have used the tower a lot…”

“I’ll say,” Twilight agreed.

Rarity gasped and then waved a hoof at Sunset. “Keep going, then! Sunset, keep going until you find us again.”

Sunset threw her head back and laughed. “I was just thinking about that!”

The other Rainbow Dash laughed in return. “Do it!” she bellowed.

“Do it!” a few others echoed.

Sunset looked back down and fed more kataward commands in rapid succession. The view inside the ball flickered as layers went by, but nothing special appeared. Everyone leaned forward with anticipation, waiting for something to change.

Finally, the view flickered once more, this time revealing five mares standing around what looked like a white ball in the middle of the room. They were Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, and Fluttershy. And they all faced a sixth mare now standing at the head of some stairs.

Sunset Shimmer’s ears drooped backward. With trepidation, she slunk over to the ball. And, after a moment of watching it, she said, “I don’t understand...”

Sunset chuckled. “Wow…”

“Ah!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed. She hopped onto the table, zipped up to the ball, and stared holes into it; she stopped just short of pressing her face into it. “I remember this! This was when we were confused!”

Twilight giggled. “Uh, Pinkie Pie, can you be more specific? I think we’ve been confused quite a few times.”

“What’s going on!?” Spike called out as he appeared at the head of the staircase.

“Well, duh,” Pinkie Pie said with a roll of her eyes. “But this is when we were confused.”

Rarity turned to Spike with a frown. “Sunset Shimmer teleported into the ball,” she explained.

Spike nearly sprinted over to them. “But she’s right here!”

“Yes, but she’s also in there,” Rarity replied, indicating with her hoof.

Applejack chuckled and nodded. “Nah. Ah think Ah see what Pinkie Pie’s sayin’. We were mighty confused. We ain’t ever been more confused.”

Sunset waved a hoof through the air as if indicating some height. “Eh… it’s up there. I don’t know if it’s the most we’ve been confused, though.”

At the same time, she fed another kataward command into the ball. The scene changed again to show an empty tower, but some whistles could be heard from a lower area. With some further thought commands, the view moved downward through the floor and into the living area. Two mares, Twilight Sparkle and Sunset Shimmer, stood in the middle of the room. Two books floated in Twilight’s magical grasp, with each shaking especially violently as ink flowed from some ink wells that Sunset was holding with her magic into one of those books.

Sunset’s expression grew solemn.

“Oh gosh,” Fluttershy, now looking a little pale in the face. “Does this mean that some ponies were watching us then?”

Twilight pursed her lips and then nodded sagely. “Uh… I think so.”

Twilight cut the spell off, and then she clutched at her chest and panted heavily. She even wiped a few drops of sweat off her brow.

Sunset took a cursory glance through the new notebook before galloping over to Twilight with both that and the original in her magical grasp.

The other Twilight leaned over. “Sunset?” she asked, observing her frown.

Sunset didn’t even look up. She eventually pointed at the ball. “This is when I was tethered.”

The two ponies compared the books side-by-side. Their grins grew wider with each page, blossoming into triumphant smiles by the time they reached the final set of text.

And then, without a single moment’s reprieve, Sunset Shimmer suddenly disappeared in another explosion of sparks, taking the original book with her. That left Twilight alone to begin considering the book’s contents.

Princess Celestia’s frown matched everyone else’s. “Yes… that is right.”

Sunset sighed and looked over. She opened her mouth to speak, closed it again, and then shook her head. “Well, at least we know the worlds still follow each other. So I would imagine everything is still on the same track.”

Twilight straightened up. “Yes. I’d have to imagine that plenty of layers above us have had this conversation already.” She nodded her head from side to side. “So it’s not much of a stretch to think they looked back and found us. Actually, it seems pretty par for the course.”

Sunset folded her hooves together and stared at the crystal ball; it remained unchanged at the moment as she was no longer sending commands to it. But this is a thing… this other layers being able to watch us is a big deal, she thought. Sure, it makes sense that if you could really move the view to any layer… theoretically… that gives access to the entire infinity. We’re only now playing with it… but still.

She scratched her cheek. Evidently… if we’re getting pinged… then our crystal ball is talking to whatever layer we’re looking at.

“Adamantine,” Sunset said.

Adamantine blinked and looked over. When Sunset didn’t respond, Adamantine’s frown deepened. “Sunset?”

Sunset only briefly looked up as all eyes turned to her. There has to be more to it, she mentally concluded. She straightened. “I want to know more about these pings we heard. When I moved the crystal ball onto our layer… how exactly did you know we were being watched?”

Adamantine placed a hoof over her chest as she lost some of her breath. “How did…? Ah…” She paused. “It is somewhat difficult to explain… I could sense a presence… somewhere. It was there for only a moment.”

“Can you tell me more about that presence?”

“I… can’t say too much. I could tell from a glance that it is similar to another presence that has always been there.” Adamantine rocked from side to side. “Actually, that one disappeared a few days ago. That is strange. Nonetheless, these presences, based on the one that was always there, reached in some direction I could not fathom. As to the second one… it only appeared for brief instants, and it always accompanied the pings that I would hear. But… there have been a few times recently where it lingered… And…”

Those sitting down sat taller in anticipation.

“And…?” Twilight tried.

“Well… now that I think about it… there have been a few other times recently where that presence has lingered. It was especially long when it happened a few days before the Nameless was destroyed. And it was of some length not long after that.” Adamantine paused. “And it has lingered somewhat every time since…”

Sunset could feel her hairs standing on end. She stood up. “…Okay. What about when I had the ball on our layer just now?”

After a moment of staring at the table, Adamantine looked up. “Well… now that you mention it… it was there then too.” Her expression darkened as she said, in a lower tone, “And it disappeared the moment you moved the view to another layer.”

“Both times?”

Both times.”

“Adamantine…” Starlight said as she too stood up. “Was that us? Do you think that thing you were sensing was us?”

Adamantine’s eyes flickered from side to side as she searched her mind. “I would… suspect so.”

Twilight hummed. “It would make sense. The first one that’s been there forever would be just the layer above us watching our layer constantly.”

“Yes. Had I thought about all of this back then, perhaps I could have traced that presence back to the source.”

The room fell silent again. All eyes remained on Adamantine now.

Could have… followed it to the source… Sunset thought. If we know we’re being watched, we can find the source. And… it sounds like higher layers have been looking further back than we are right now.

Her muzzle twitched. But… how far back?

“So… what does this all mean?” Principal Celestia asked. “Forgive me. I’m not really suited to completely understand these things.”

Princess Celestia nodded. “Twilight? Do you have any thoughts?”

Twilight remained silent. She eventually shook her head and looked over. “Sunset?”

Sunset looked up at Twilight. “There are so many questions… a lot of which I’m sure only those behind the seal could have answered,” Twilight’s voice said in Sunset’s head.

Her eyes moved back onto the crystal ball. Twilight sat on the couch, idly browsing the journal she had copied from a time-traveling Sunset. Sunset considered the image within for a moment and then considered the ball itself.

Her frown deepened. I… wonder…

She fed a rapid volley of mental kataward commands into the ball. The image within began flickering at a rapid pace. The sky outside ran through every type of weather imaginable, oscillating between clear skies and cloudy skies before making way for wintery whites and cool colors. Browns and yellows flashed by before returning to the summer weathers.

A few eyes drilled holes into it and then looked up at Sunset questioningly.

Twilight swallowed. “Sunset?” she wheezed. “What are you doing?”

Sunset looked up. “I’m going back... back as far as I can.”

“Why?”

Sunset didn’t respond for a moment. She kept moving through lower layers at even faster velocities. They went by in the blink of an eye now.

Tentatively, she spoke, “I’m not entirely sure what’s about to happen… although I have a good idea…” She looked up. “But… if I’m right about this… I’m about to blow this whole thing wide open.”

Now Twilight’s hair also stood on end as she turned her attention toward the crystal ball. Several sets of eyes followed suit. No one said anything; everyone just about held their breaths.

The weather outside the tower repeatedly breezed through summers and winters and everything in between in quick succession. A few blurs occasionally appeared within the living area, but the view changed so quickly that identifying them was impossible. The decorations occasionally shifted or sometimes were replaced. The layers came and went.

Eventually, the decorations disappeared entirely, and then the walls started tearing down. Sunset knew better; this was likely when the tower was built. The tower was unmade, and that revealed the main castle beyond being unmade as well. Soon enough, the entire castle grounds was nothing more than a green pasture on the mountainside.

Sunset fed a seal command to the crystal ball, and the view changed to show a large, hemispherical chamber. The various sigils in the floors and the walls glowed with a hellish red light. For a few moments, the image seemed to remain static.

All the while, everyone continued watching in silence; they, however, let out their held breaths. A minute passed.

How many layers down had she already gone? Sunset couldn’t tell.

Finally, new images flickered inside the ball. Seemingly, the chamber itself began deconstructing, revealing rock wall behind it. The floor disappeared as well, revealing a large cavity. And then that cavity filled up with dirt and rock which yielded a smooth surface. Several structures suddenly appeared within the cavern.

The flickering stopped and the image within the crystal ball settled into something final.

Sunset straightened up. “This is as far as I can go,” she announced.

Everyone craned their necks to see into the ball.

Monolithic structures made of smooth and shiny rock, placed in each corner of the cavern, stretched toward the jagged, uneven, crystalline ceiling. Their faces hosted large, bioluminescent circuits that brightened and dimmed in some sort of rhythm. The center of the cavern hosted a small pedestal made of stone. A crystal ball sat nestled into a cavity in its top.

An alicorn stallion of an onyx-colored coat and a silvery mane and tail suddenly perked up and turned his attention toward the crystal ball. He said a few words in a strange language. His movements and speech had speed to them like his reality was moving fast.

Adamantine gasped and rose to her hooves. “Oh my goodness…”

Sunset sucked in a breath. “Wow… I don’t believe it.”

“Hey… who is that?” Starlight asked.

“I’ve seen him in my dreams,” Sunset wheezed. “He’s real!”

The alicorn stallion trotted a few laps around the pedestal, considering it all the while. He muttered a few more words in his strange language.

“That…” Adamantine croaked. “Yes… I know who that is. That is… Genesis. He… he was the first king of the unponies. T-that was six thousand years ago.”

Several took a moment to consider her words. They eventually looked back into the ball.

Genesis looked up and faced a large opening at the head of the cavern which led into a nearby tunnel. He spoke again, his voice coarse and monotone. His language remained incomprehensible.

“A-ah…” Adamantine stammered, “he said… ‘I have registered a ping. We are being watched.’”

Several heads turned to Adamantine with alarm.

And then a new voice replied back from within the tunnel. The voice was dark, guttural, and infernal. Its speech caused everyone in the library to shiver and lose color. It spoke in what had to be the same language as Genesis (who seemed unfazed by the voice’s power).

Adamantine looked like she was about ready to shrivel up. She shot to her hooves now. “Oh… oh, by the stars!”

“W-who is that?” Twilight wheezed.

The speaker then came into view. The entity, quadrupedal in appearance, stood several times the height of the alicorn. Its body was a mass of black slime with a singular red light in the center. Some bits and pieces here and there churned and twisted and even fell off, but for the most part, the body remained quite stable and whole. The head area was shaped like an actual one, with this one having a pronounced snout.

The entity glided into the center of the room and looked down at the crystal ball. And it smiled. Its mouth opened, showing pointed fangs. It even growled with delight, the sound of which had sickly undertones.

Adamantine screamed. She backpedaled, eventually crashing on the floor behind her. Even then, she tried to scurry away again. She screamed a series of words in a language completely alien.

Rarity gasped. “What is that!?” She whirled. “Adamantine! What…?”

“I don’t believe it!” Sunset exclaimed.

Princess Celestia flinched as Adamantine fled. “Adamantine! Are you alright!?”

Adamantine belted out a few more pointed words in her strange tongue and then lifted a hoof to shakily point at the crystal ball. “B… Behold! The Great Benefactor! Your Nameless!”

All at once, everyone besides Twilight and Sunset cried out and backed away from the table. While some like Tempest only needed a few steps of space, others like Principal Celestia, Vice Principal Luna, and both Fluttershys drew back as far as they could before they fell over. Spike, who had been standing on the table, tumbled over the side.

The Nameless hovered over the crystal ball as it spoke a few more words. Genesis nodded and turned his attention to the pedestal. A few of the symbols within flashed seemingly at random.

“I-I… I can’t believe it!” the other Twilight cried. “I’m… I’m seeing it with my own eyes!”

“I-incredible…” Princess Luna stammered, now taking a few more steps back.

Several others were visibly sweating now. Rarity clung to Applejack who, in turn, idly returned the hold. Starlight stood deathly silent. Both Pinkie Pies glanced about with worried frowns.

“What is this!?” Princess Celestia cried. “What… what is the first king of the unponies doing with this monster!?”

The other Rainbow Dash looked up. “Sunset, what did you do!?”

Sunset couldn’t even find words to reply with. She just stared back in shock.

The Nameless spoke a few more words as Genesis worked. And then Genesis, without looking up, said some words in return.

“What are they saying!?” Twilight screamed, whipping her head to face Adamantine in particular.

Adamantine, still shaking, rolled over and rose to her hooves. “T-they’re… they’re trying to find the source of whatever is watching them… they’re closing in on it…”

Sunset paled and had to steady herself on the table. “They’re… trying to find us.”

“Sunset!” the other Rainbow Dash cried.

Ping!

Adamantine sharply yelped.

Sunset flinched and looked up at Adamantine. “I… I just heard a ping! Did you hear that!?”

All eyes turned to Adamantine. Adamantine, in return, shakily nodded as some of her own color drained from her face. “Y-yes…” She swallowed. “We’re… being watched.”

Genesis uttered a few more words as the lights on the pedestal turned a different color; they kept the same, seemingly random pattern from before.

Adamantine’s body briefly fizzled in and out of existence which caused Sunset to also briefly fizzle. Everyone else looked over with alarm.

Once they restabilized, Sunset looked up. Adamantine rapidly ran hooves over her own body, checking to make sure she was still whole.

Genesis straightened up and looked up at the Nameless. And he said, smoothly this time, “Scan complete. Normalizing time passage.”

In the next moment, their movements seemed to slow down. Genesis then aimed his horn at the Nameless and shot a beam. The beam went straight through the slime and connected with the red light in its center, prompting a rainbow-colored wave to sweep over it.

The Nameless groaned and shifted in place but otherwise remained standing. It then chuckled.

Twilight gasped. “He… he got our language? Does that…?”

Everyone remained silent now.

Sunset gasped. “So… wait… wait…”

Starlight held up a hoof. “No.”

“If we’re looking at their layer…” Twilight began, “and… they are looking at ours…”

Sunset exchanged glances with Twilight. They stared into each other’s fearful eyes, sharing an entire unspoken conversation. And then Twilight firmed up and nodded.

And so Sunset turned her attention toward the ceiling as she had done before. She looked up, trying to find a face she knew wasn’t there. And she said, with a tremulous yet deliberate voice, “…Hello? Can you hear me?”

At once, both Genesis and the Nameless took one look down into the crystal ball. And they exchanged glances.

Finally, the Nameless let out a sinister chuckle as it tilted its head back. It too now looked up. It gave the impression that it was looking right at Sunset. And the Nameless stood to its full height and it opened its mouth.

“Greetings… my little ponies,” the Nameless said. “We meet at last.”